


Never Let Me Go

by PinkPandorafrog



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-22 14:08:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4838066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkPandorafrog/pseuds/PinkPandorafrog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy's memory when she went back in time is so spotty...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 “You've got to come out with us, Darcy.” Peggy was standing in her doorway, one hand on her hip, the other braced against the door frame. The unspoken _you owe me_ hung in the air between them.

Darcy sighed, sitting up and dropping her book to the bed beside her. She totally hadn't been planning on going anywhere. Going out meant fending off the casual misogyny that sort of made up the entire 1940s. Steve wasn't so bad, and going out with Peggy meant going out with Steve... “Fine. But this makes us totally even, and don't even think it doesn't.” She stooped down to grab her hose off the floor and slid it back on before stepping into her shoes. “I'm not wearing my hat.”

Peggy rolled her eyes, but she picked up Darcy's handbag from the hook beside the door and held it out to her.

“I don't know why you can't just go out with your gigantic boyfriend yourself,” she muttered as they moved across the muddy ground towards the bar.

Peggy sort of pressed her lips together. “Not my boyfriend.” Darcy grinned. “His dearest friend was among those in the last rescue, and-”

“Oh, god. _Please_ tell me you're not setting me up with someone? Please, Peggy?” A look over showed Peggy was staring resolutely straight ahead, but there was that look on her face she got when she was doing something particularly cheeky, as she would say.

Darcy let out a long sigh, making a face as they walked through the night. The bar was busy, of course, and since there was a _shortage_ of women available, even with the hospital near by, they drew a lot of attention as soon as they went inside.

But Peggy's gigantic not-boyfriend was already making his way over to them, and, okay. She would do this for Steve. Because the look on his face when he saw Peggy... And hers... Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah, okay. She'd totally sit through meeting whoever Steve's friend was for them.

He led them over to a table sort of at the back where it wasn't quite so loud. A dark-haired man put down his pint of beer and stood up. And the smile that moved over his face when he saw her was pure fucking sin.

“Darcy, this is Bucky,” Steve was saying.

“How come you didn't tell me how pretty she is, punk?” The question was obviously meant for Steve, but his eyes didn't leave Darcy's face.

And, okay. It was a line, and she _knew_ better, but she couldn't stop herself from smiling back at him.

* * *

 

Darcy lay back against the uncomfortable bed with her head propped up on a mound of stolen pillows, staring up at the ceiling. At least she got an actual bed, though. One of the perks of being... Well, she wasn't entirely sure how they saw her, but at least they'd accepted that she was from the future instead of being some sort of German spy or something.

Bucky's weight wasn't helping with the discomfort. He was laying between her legs, head pillowed against her bare breasts. He wasn't Steve, you know, new Steve, but he was a pretty solid guy. She didn't want him to move, though. This was pretty much perfect. She was stroking her fingers through his hair, her other hand twined with his.

“We're movin' out in the morning.” God, his voice. The deep, lazy drawl just did things to her, no matter that he just _actually_ done things to her.

“I know. Peggy told me.” And Peggy was all stiff upper lip about it. She'd never quite understood the reference before, but she sure as shit did now. Peggy was basically the epitome of stiff upper lip.

“I don't wanna go.” He rolled his head back looking up into her eyes. “I'd rather stay here with you just like this.” He rubbed his chin gently over her breast, and she couldn't help but be thankful that he'd shaved before he came to bed.

“Yeah, I bet you say that to all the girls.” Her memory was a bit spotty, but she seemed to remember Steve saying something about Bucky being better with girls than he was.

“Just the special ones.” He gave her a grin before shifting down, his head disappearing under the sheets. The bed squeaked as he moved down, but Darcy tried not to care about the noise. After all, her room was next to Peggy's, and Darcy was surprised Peggy even had a bed left.

His intent was pretty clear as his hands slid down the backs of her legs, pulling them gently apart. “We need to sleep,” Darcy protested only half-heartedly.

“I can sleep when I'm dead. Right now I need to make sure my girl doesn't forget me while I'm gone.” She could feel the breadth of his shoulders as he settled down between her legs, felt his slightly rough hands sliding up the insides of her thighs.

“Wait, who are you again?” she teased, sliding her foot up his bare ribcage. The gentle pinch at the inside of her thigh had her laughing, but her breath was stolen away as his tongue touched against her clit. “James,” came out a breathy murmur, and he made an appreciative noise as his lips moved against the sensitive flesh.

* * *

 

Darcy knew she was driving Howard insane, but she was all out of fucks. Like, just no fucks left to give at all. She was pacing around and around. No one was saying anything to her about it, and she swore she could see a glimmer of sympathy in Peggy's eyes. Because seven of them had gone out at stupid o'clock in the morning, and only six had come back. Six. _And no one was talking to her_. They were debriefing now, in talking to Colonel Phillips.

Peggy had talked to Steve, so it wasn't Steve. Of course it wasn't fucking Steve, the man was like a tank in a human's body.

It couldn't be Bucky, right? Steve would never let anything happen to Bucky. Of course it wasn't Bucky. That thought didn't help the feeling of unease at the back of her mind as she moved back and forth across the room.

His last words to her in the dark of her room that morning when he'd pulled his shirt on ran back over and over in her mind. _Say you'll always be my girl, Darce_. And she'd pushed her fingers through his hair and told him she would. It wasn't like she had anything waiting for her in her time, not that she remembered.

The door opened and Steve came in. His face was stony, his jaw clenching over and over, the muscles in the side of his cheek jumping. He caught Peggy's eyes and held them for a second, and her eyes closed, one hand going to grip the edge of her desk.

“Darcy?”

Darcy stopped walking and looked up at him. He was walking towards her, and she could _see_ it in his eyes. “I'm gonna go get some coffee.” Because if he couldn't tell her, it wouldn't be true. Right? “Peggy, do you want some coffee?” She was moving, walking towards where Steve had left the door open. She could see Dum Dum and Jim just outside the door, Dum Dum had taken his hat off. He never took his hat off.

Steve snagged her elbow as she brushed past him, halting her in her tracks. She stared straight ahead at the door, eyes filming over with tears, blurring her vision. “Darcy...” He turned her gently towards him, pulling her against his chest.

She braced her hands against him, though, pushing back, away. “Why didn't you save him? What's the use of you being all fucking superhuman if you can't even save your best fucking friend?” She twisted away from his reaching arms, moving quickly through the room to the door. She heard them speaking to her, gruff, soft voices, but she pushed past them all, almost running in her hurry to get away from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never Let Me Go by Florence + The Machine; Darcy/Bucky.
> 
> I don't think this turned out quite how I wanted it to, but it happened.


	2. Chapter 2

 “I'm _not_ going to the fucking Smithsonian exhibit,” Darcy said with a long sigh. It was a little bit late for all of that, of course, seeing as they were standing on the sidewalk right outside. She couldn't exactly tell Kim that she'd _been_ there through it, that was something that she wasn't allowed to talk about.

“You _have_ to. It's my birthday.” Kim's grin was a little bit infectious as she rested her hand on the door handle, and Darcy sighed and shook her head, unable to stop from grinning a little in return.

“Fine. Don't say I never did anything for you.” Go in, take a look at the pictures. See friends she hadn't seen since she'd left that time, have a bit of nostalgia. It would totally be fine, right?

Well, kinda. It was a bit of trip, walking through the exhibit and seeing everything. Skinny Steve, she remembered how fucking adorable skinny Steve was before he'd been made all huge and, you know, sex machine on legs. The last time she'd been to see Peggy, Peggy had mentioned Steve had been to see her. That was good, Darcy was glad for her. Peggy had obviously been married and whatever, but Steve would always be her first love.

The uniforms, she missed the uniforms. At least a little. The guys had looked damn good in their uniforms, though.

She stopped to smile at a picture of Peggy and Howard. What wasn't noticeable from the picture was the dressing-down that Peggy was giving him, and the second later when his expression turned slightly chagrined. She missed Peggy putting Howard in his place.

It was harder than she thought it would be, all the memories. Howard was dead now, of course, Peggy in long-term care with Alzheimer's. Only Steve was left, and she hadn't spoken to him in...

“Hey, Darcy,” Kim called, waving her closer. “Come here!” Her friend was standing over by the special exhibit on Bucky Barnes, the only one of the Howling Commandos who'd been lost in combat, according to the standee.

Darcy put a smile on her face that she was no longer feeling and made her way through the crowd to where her friend was pointing at a small picture on the wall. “What is it?” Probably shirtless Steve. Which, to be fair, pretty fucking magnificent. She wished she could remember why they weren't speaking.

“This is so crazy, this woman looks just like you!”

Darcy followed the line of Kim's pointing finger to see... Fuck. _Fuck_. It was her. It was her with Steve, Peggy, and... Who was that dark-haired man?

 _Bucky_ , a little voice in the back in her mind whispered, triggering memories of things she'd lost so long ago... Of course it was Bucky, the face looked just like the cardboard cutout that was standing no more than two feet away.

She could feel the blood draining from her face as she turned away, stumbling a little as she rushed towards the exit, Kim's voice sliding right out of her ears as she called after her.

Darcy called a cab and went home. She went up to her apartment for just a second after she paid the driver, and then went down to get in her own car. She knew where Steve was, as much as she hadn't spoken to him. Everyone know Captain America was living in the Avengers Tower.

The drive hardly registered. She drove along the freeway, changed lanes when appropriate, kept up with traffic around her, but her mind was _whirling_. It was like trying to catch smoke, the more she tried to remember, the more she came up completely empty about the dark-haired man in the photograph. But Steve was there. He was Steve's best friend, according to the exhibit. So Steve had to know more about him. And there was something tickling at the back of her brain that he was _important_ somehow.

Finding parking around the Avengers Tower was a complete fucking nightmare. She ended up parking a couple of blocks away and walking along there in her flats, her hands jammed deep in the pockets of her pockets, her right hand closed around a small photograph.

The lobby. There was security, there was no way of knowing where Steve was and how to get to him. She stood there for a long moment, slightly to the right of the doors, looking around and trying to figure out her next move. Because she hadn't really thought _this_ far yet. The Tower had probably over 100 floors, and chances were pretty good she wasn't going to be allowed to run freely around them until she found Steve. The best thing to do was going to be to ask. She marched up to the front desk. “I need to see Steve Rogers, please.”

The completely unphased front desk person looked up from her monitor, one eyebrow slightly arched. “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Rogers?”

“Fuck that. No, I don't have an appointment. I haven't spoken with him since fucking 1946.” It was like talking to a brick wall, the woman clearly didn't believe her. “Darcy fucking Lewis,” she snapped at the completely unsympathetic woman. “Here.” She pulled the picture that had been buried at the bottom of her sock drawer for entirely too long now from her pocket and slapped it down on the desk. “Who the fuck is in that picture? I'm telling you right now that if you fucking call him and tell him I'm down here, he's going to be glad you told him.”

The picture was an old black and white of her and Steve, her with her hand on his bicep as he blushed and flexed for her. It had been taken just after he'd been made all huge and she _still_ remembered the color his face had gone when she'd told him she wanted to lick him.

She wasn't exactly being quiet as she spoke, and security was sort of starting to drift over. She was so done with this shit. Like, was she going to have to call Nick or something? He was back in the country. He'd get her past these goons. And she needed to call him anyway, because there was a picture of her in the fucking Smithsonian, and she thought that shit was supposed to be the most classified thing to ever classified.

“Darcy.” She could hear the pain in the quiet voice, and she turned around to see Steve walking towards her, fresh hurt in his blue eyes. He'd just come from the direction of the elevators, how had he gotten down there so fast.

“Steve... I...” She glanced around the busy lobby. This probably wasn't the best place to have this conversation, and they were definitely beginning to attract some attention. “Steve, I need to talk to you.”

Steve's hand hovered over her shoulder for a second before resting against her, almost like he was afraid to touch her. He guided her over to an elevator and they got on, joining a group of people that was going up. She could feel the tension in his arm as the press of people pushed her shoulder against his.

The elevator emptied out as it took them up until they were the only two left. A tense silence filled the elevator car, and Steve's arms were folded in front of him. Her memory of that time was so full of holes, she knew she _hadn't_ spoken to Steve in years, but she didn't know _why_.And it was too painful for Peggy to talk about, if Peggy even remembered anything but the pain.

When the elevator stopped, he led the way off and down a hall into what looked like some sort of office. The overhead lights came on as soon as they entered, revealing a tidy office that really didn't seem to see a lot of use. He closed the door behind him and stood in front of it as Darcy continued over to the desk.

She turned to face him, hoisting herself onto the wooden desk, her legs automatically crossing. “Steve... Why is there a picture of me with Bucky in the Smithsonian?”

He stared at her for a long minute before unfolding his arms. He reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a small wooden box, stretching out his arm as he offered it to her.

Darcy gave him a look. She'd just gotten on the desk, and now she was supposed to get back off and go over there? Sighing, she slid off the desk and walked back over to him, plucking the box out of his hand. “Steve, why aren't we talking, anyway?” She hadn't talked to him since he'd been defrosted, that much she knew. So obviously it had happened before that. “I mean, we were pretty close at one point, right?”

“You blamed me for what happened to Bucky.” His words fell flat against her, echoing the pain that was in his eyes.

“Really?” She winced, looking up at him. “Fuck me, I'm sorry.” She knew the mechanics, of course. That was in history books, in the fucking Smithsonian exhibit. James “Bucky” Barnes had fallen from a train one some elite mission. There were whispers in the back of her mind, that was significant somehow. Obviously they'd been having a pretty good time together in that picture she'd seen, his arm was around her, her head was against his shoulder, and they were _laughing_. For some reason she seemed to think that the photographer had made her get off his lap because it wasn't appropriate. Yeah, that seemed right.

He didn't say anything, just gestured to the box. Sighing, Darcy went back to the desk and sat down on it. She slouched a little as the stared at the box, but it was just a plain, wooden box. It was about the size of the old teacups Peggy liked, but there wasn't anything that gave her a clue as to what was in it.

Glancing up at Steve, she pushed the front of the box open. There was... There was a ring. A gold ring with a single diamond nestled on a piece of paper. “What the actual fuck is this?” But she _knew_ what it was. She absolutely knew what it was.

“He was keepin' it for you. Slept with it under his pillow, the nights he slept in his own bed anyway.” That, that was an accusation.

She picked up the ring between her thumb and forefinger, setting it gently down on the desk next to her. It wasn't... Small. She stared at it for a second before turning her attention back to the box. The piece of paper was a letter, the paper yellowed a bit by time. It hadn't been disturbed too much, though, the folds still sharp. “What's...”

“His ma wanted you to have that. When I came back to tell her that her oldest son, her James...” He swallowed and looked down at the floor, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He seemed to shrink for a second, and when he looked up at her it was the same defiant look skinny Steve had given the fucking _world_. “She wanted to meet you.”

Darcy gingerly unfolded the letter and squinted at it. Her glasses were... Back in DC? This hadn't exactly been the most well-thought-out trip she'd ever taken. She didn't even have any clothes for tomorrow. Or, like, a toothbrush. “Who's Ann?”

“His sister.”

She read the letter. It was a man's letter to his little sister, obviously. It was affectionate, slightly teasing. But at the end there was a paragraph about how he'd found a girl, that she was a bit rough around the edges but she was the one. And he needed Ann's help with their mother, because he was going to marry her. “She sounds like a real peach,” Darcy said, and noted the quaver in her voice.

“She was.” There was a hard edge in Steve's voice, a trace of anger.

“Steve...” Darcy took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What did I do?” She couldn't face him, so she refolded the letter and put it back, followed by the ring.

“You told me it was my fault he died, Darcy. When I came to you and told you I needed someone who understood, someone who loved Bucky like I did, you slapped my face and told me it was my fault.”

Darcy winced again, shifting back a little so she could draw her knees up to her chest and wrap her arms around them. “Fuck me. I'm... I'm sorry.”

“You were so angry with me, I think you actually hated me.” His blue eyes were dark as he stared at her, relentless.

“I don't...” She rested her chin on her knee and shook her head. “I don't remember that. I remember telling you that I wanted to lick you. I remember Peggy getting all flustered over you and pretending she wasn't. I remember Howard...” Okay, _that_ probably wasn't the thing to be bringing up right now. She changed tack. “He had such a crush on you. I remember you dying.” And holding Peggy all night long while they split a bottle of whiskey. To this day she still couldn't drink whiskey. Yeah, so that had come out as a little bit of an accusation.

Steve stared at her for a long moment. “Do you remember Bucky at all?”

His voice triggered... something. Something more than she'd gotten in the drive up, anyway. A warm weight against her breasts, a pair of shoulders between her legs. Fingers entwined with hers... The feeling of warmth, of _happiness_.But it was still entirely too much like grasping at smoke. “No.”

“He doesn't remember either.”

The sentence fell between them, and it took a second before Darcy figured out what he was actually saying. “Wait. Wait... Bucky's not dead?” Guilt. Sheer numbing, overwhelming guilt. She knew _why_ of course, but she couldn't remember the feelings behind the guilt.

“They tortured him, turned him. Made him a mindless weapon. Hydra did. He tried to kill me...” His face softened. “He saved my life.”

“Wait. Is that why Nick was being all shifty?” _Someone_ had tried to kill Fury, had pretty nearly succeeded. It took a lot to kill Nicholas J Fury, but if they'd made Bucky into...

Steve pushed away from the door, his hands came out of his pockets. He reached towards her, and it took everything she had in her not to flinch away from those large hands. But he reached out and brushed his thumb across her cheek- she was crying. He was wiping away tears.

“Do you hate me?” she asked, looking up at him, and his haunting blue eyes lost that edge of steel.

He shook his head. “I was angry with you for a while, Darcy. I still am, at least a little. But... I have nothing left.” His thumb was stroking over her cheek.

“Well, you have me, I guess. I don't like not talking to you.” She _missed_ him. “And I would still totally lick you.”

His laughter was a little hollow, but at least he was laughing. His thumb stroked over her cheek. “You're a bit pale, Darce. When was the last time you ate?”

“Uh...” His question made her realize it had been that morning. She'd kinda skipped lunch with her whole mad drive to New York thing, and now it was getting on dinner time. “Too long ago.”

He stepped a little closed, his arm going around her shoulders. “Come and get something to eat. You can meet Sam, he's helping me look for Bucky.”

Darcy swallowed, nodding. She wasn't entirely sure she was ready for _that_ , but...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More? Oh, okay!


	3. Chapter 3

 Darcy froze as they stepped off the elevator into some sort of lounge area. There was a large television up on the wall, and... She was on it. But, like, not her most recent DMV picture or anything. No, instead there was the picture she must have left on the front desk in the lobby of the tower, the picture she'd seen in the Smithsonian and a picture she... Holy fuck. Yup, she definitely remembered that picture. She squinted at it for a second. “Wow. I didn't even know those were still around.”

“The most interesting thing in this whole scenario,” said a man who could only be Tony Stark as he sauntered towards where she'd halted just outside of the elevator, arms folded with a remote in one hand, “is that other than your DMV record, all information on you is locked up tighter than the oil companies' deals with the government.” He stopped in front of her, curiosity plain on his face as he looked down at her.

She gestured to the picture on the left, the one where she was wearing just her underwear. Well, high-waisted panties, anyway. “Where'd you get that?” She had a pretty good idea where he'd got it from, but... Confirmation would be good.

“You came into my building today and caused a bit of ruckus, so naturally I wanted to see who was causing all the commotion. When I saw the security footage, I was positive I'd seen you before, and then when I saw the picture you left with them, it fell into place. My dad...” He paused, looking her over, looking very much like he knew what she looked like under her jeans and t-shirt. “My dad kept that picture in a frame _in_ his desk. Now, either your genetics carry _very_ clearly and you are the spitting image of your grandmother, or that...” He turned to face the screen as well, looking up at the picture. “Is, in fact, you.”

“No, that's me.” She stared up at the screen. “Fuck, I was drunk. Looks good, though.” She'd never actually seen the pictures before, just knew that they'd been taken. She was on her knees in this one, peeking out from behind her hair at the camera. Her arms were folded over her breasts, _just_ obscuring her nipples, legs spread slightly apart. She could see it, could see the flush the alcohol had given her, but if she didn't know better she'd probably be tempted to say she was rocking a just-fucked look.

“This is a little surreal. That picture, uh, impressed a lot of my formative years, and now you're standing in front of me looking hardly a day older.” He was staring at her like he was just completely fascinated by her, like there were a million questions he had that he wanted to ask her.

“Oh...” She shook her head, her lips pressing together. “I'm older.” It was stupid, but some days she felt like she belonged in the room next to Peggy's.

“Uh, Darce?” from her left. She looked over to Steve looking like he was torn between looking and _not_ looking. As far as she knew, he'd never seen her quite so, uh... Exposed.

The squishy-magnety sound of a fridge closing, and then “Damn,” came floating over from what looked like a kitchen on the other side of a half-wall. “Friend of yours, Steve?”

Darcy turned her attention to the slightly-flushed man on her left. “Oh, come on, Steve, it's not like I haven't ogled you half-naked enough.” Only as often as possible.

Except, when Darcy looked back at the TV, that shot of guilt pierced through her, and Darcy bit her lip. “Fuck. Fuck!” She moved through to where a long cream-colored couch was opposite the TV and sank down on it, resting her elbows on her knees and burying her face in her palms. Yeah. This probably wasn't going to go well.

“Hey, Darce?” Steve's gentle voice from behind her made her want to cry. And she didn't know _why_ , that was the worst part. Well, okay, she knew _why_. Apparently she'd been all fucking ready to get fucking engaged or something, and then...

She could hear it in his voice, too. It was slightly more pointed this time, his asking her for information. But it was like he wanted to know, but he wasn't so sure he wanted the answer. He was worried it was going to hurt or something. And Darcy was pretty fucking positive he didn't want the answer.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath and turned to face him. He was still standing where she'd left him, so was Howard's son, and _there_ were some genetics that carried clearly. “So you died, right? Or, I mean, your plane went down.” She waved her hand. It was the same fucking thing, at least it had been that horrible night in 1946. “And Peggy...” She took a deep breath. “Peggy and I killed a bottle of whiskey. She... She said she wanted some time. I wanted to not be alone? Right? So, um...” Another deep breath, she realized her knee was jiggling. “Howard was working, right, and also didn't want to be alone, so I figured I'd lend a hand or whatever. He was _wrecked_ , Steve. He was trying to keep himself from falling apart by keeping himself together with his work. He was working on making a smaller camera? So, I, uh, helped.”

Identical looks of bemusement from both men. Steve opened his mouth like he was going to say something, and then closed it again, looking from her to the screen, and back again. Tony Stark looked like he could have been pushed over with a feather, his eyebrows drawing together a little bit as he stared at her.

“Howard,” Steve said finally. It wasn't a question, but he was looking at her like he wanted some kind of confirmation. He'd followed exactly where she was going with that, then again with the picture up on the TV it was kind of hard to miss.

“Yes.” Darcy nodded once. “And he had some vodka he'd gotten at some point and was more than willing to... Drown his sorrows with me. He had an answer, and he had booze.” And when losing himself in his worked hadn't been successful, he'd tried to lose himself in _her_. Whatever shortcomings Howard had had, lack of expertise in bed was _not_ one of them.

“Jesus, Darcy. Howard? I mean, had you already completely forgotten about Bucky by this point?” And there it was, the clenched jaw, the muscle in the side of his cheek jumping. “After only a few months?”

She spread her arms wide and shrugged. “I... I dunno, Steve. I mean, my apparent boyfriend? Died. And then one of my best friends who I was apparently in the middle of a big hatefest with died. I was drunk off my ass! You know, fuck me very much for wanting some kind of comfort!”

Howard's son opened his mouth to say something, one index finger raised in front of him, but Steve shook his head. “Not a word, Stark.” He stared at Darcy for a minute. “You know what he said on the train? He told me that that was the day, he was gonna ask you when we got back. I asked him if he was sure, you guys hadn't been together that long. He told me, 'Life's too short, Stevie. You find somethin' special like that, you hold onto it.'”

Darcy stared up at him for a long moment, then shook her head. “Nope. I'm... Nope.” She actually couldn't deal with that. She'd reached her limit. She stood up and moved towards the elevator, already pulling her phone out of the pocket of her sweater. She didn't even look up at him as she brushed between he and Howard's son, moving directly back towards the elevator.

“What's happening here?” Howard's son asked as she dialed a number.

Voicemail, of course, she hadn't been expecting any different. The automated voice, the slightly strained beep. “Yeah, I need you to come get me.” She hung up, shaking her head as she stared hard at the elevator. The phone stayed clutched in her hand, held against her upper arm as she folded her arms in front of her.

The phone rang just as the elevator doors were sliding back open. She stepped inside and turned to jab viciously at the button for the lobby, keeping her eyes trained on the floor. “Hey.” She could _feel_ them looking at her at the doors whisked shut.

“You know you're only supposed to ask me for that in an emergency.” Nick didn't sound pissed, at least. That was something. He sounded more amused than anything else.

“This is a fucking emergency, Nick. Did you know that Howard had pictures of me?” She dug her toe into the lines in the carpet.

There was a long moment of silence. “How many?” All traces of humor were gone from his voice.

“I don't fucking know, but Tony Stark has at least one. And that wasn't the only one taken, I can tell you that for a fact.” Darcy took a deep, shaky breath, letting it out slowly.

“You're at the Tower now.” It wasn't a question, Nick knew exactly where she was. “I'll have someone look into it.”

She sighed, moving back into the corner of the elevator as it slowed to a stop and the doors slid open, the other people getting on barely giving a glance in her direction. “Thanks, Nick. They're, um... They're adult pictures?” She winced, and there was a heavy silence on the other end of the phone. “And there's a picture of me in the Smithsonian, a girlfriend of mine recognized me today.”

“I know. Do you know how hard it was to find a picture of James Barnes without you in it?” She stayed silent, she actually had no idea. She heard the long sigh from the other end of the phone.

“Are you coming to get me?” she asked after a long silence, her voice almost a whisper. She hugged her free arm around herself, pressing back into the corner as much as she could, eyes closing. She just wanted to shut out the world.

“Yeah.” She let out a sigh of relief at the answer. “Already on my way. Go somewhere nice and public, I'll find you.”

“Thanks, Nick.” She pulled the phone away from her ear and disconnected the call before sliding it back into her pocket. Of course she still had her car here, but... No, she needed to be around someone who understood. Nick... Nick didn't get a lot of it, but he'd been there when she came back, when she woke up naked in Central Park. He'd given her his coat and led her over to an SUV and started the most gentle debriefing of her life. And Darcy... Darcy had had a lot of experience with debriefings.

Nick was a good friend. He wouldn't judge her for a desperate, drunken one-night-stand with Howard Stark, no matter what the timing had been.

The elevator slowed to a stop again, and she opened her eyes to see that everyone was getting off. They'd reached the lobby again, and she stepped out as well. She was drawing curiosity this time as she moved through the room, but she ignored them all, heading for the wide glass doors that would let her our into the street.

Somewhere public... There was a diner just across the street, and her stomach rumbled to remind her that she still hadn't had anything to eat, or coffee, in entirely too long. She could get something to eat and then go hang out in Central Park for a while. Fitting, somehow, since the last time Nick had found her in New York, it had been in Central Park.

Her lips twisted into a humorless smile. Of course, last time she'd been about 100% more naked. Somehow, though, she felt much more exposed this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably... Two more chapters? There will definitely be a resolution.


	4. Chapter 4

 Nick set a an old cardboard box down on top of his desk. It was slightly dusty on top, but pretty unremarkable. “I thought you might finally want to have another look.”

She gave the box a rather dubious look before looking up at his face. “What is it?”

“Not too long after I became director, Peggy Carter showed up on my doorstep with this box.” He came around to the side of the desk she was sitting on and sat back against it. “Said she wasn't sure she was going to be around to do it, so she told me I had to take care of you. You've seen this all before, but...” His face took on a more severe cast than normal. “You told me never to show this to you again.”

She gave him a look. “But here you are...”

His eyebrow arched. “I think the past is catching up with you, and even if you can't remember what happened, having knowledge of it is probably going to help.”

Darcy stood up and lifted the lid off the box. It was full of what looked like type-written sheets of paper and... photographs. There was one sitting almost on top, buried under a folded piece of paper. She reached into the box and pulled it out. It was... “I don't remember this.” It was her standing beside Howard, his arm around her, her kissing his cheek. They were in some sort of hangar or something like that. He was wearing a suit, she didn't remember ever seeing him in a suit, and she was wearing some kind of dress. “Why couldn't this be the picture he kept?” She sighed, shaking her head and setting it down on the table. “Is that how you knew to come find me? Peggy told you?”

“Yeah. Howard sent you back.”

She looked up at him from where she was reaching for another piece of paper, both eyebrows raised. “Really? So why was I naked?”

He just looked back at her. “Now that I don't know.”

“Huh.” The sheet on top of the file was just basic biographic information. Her height, her weight, date and location of birth, which had been blacked out. Next of kin was Peggy. Or rather, had been Peggy, but that was crossed out and Howard was written underneath it.

“You didn't want to come back, she did tell me that.” There was a long pause, and Darcy looked up again to see him staring straight across the room, eye slightly unfocused as he looked at the back wall. “But they were worried about your mind. Your mental capacity was seriously deteriorating, you'd started forgetting things that had happened before you turned up in the '40s. She thought that we would have a better chance of restoring and possibly reversing that.”

That made sense. “Do you still have it? The... Whatever sent me back here?” A picture of her at a typewriter making a face joined the papers on the desk.

“No. Apparently it suffered catastrophic failure by way of a baseball bat.” There was a wry tone in Nick's voice, and she glanced up to see him fold his arms over his chest.

The next sheet was mostly blacked out, except for her name in places and a few filler words. Darcy squinted at it. “Darcy Lewis was found...” She shook her head. That was really the only useful information on the thing. “Peggy didn't happen to mention how I got there, did she?”

“Yes. Now, that we still have. It's an alien artifact, we believe it's Kree. Apparently you said the stone swallowed you and sent you back in time. It's locked away so that doesn't happen to anyone else.” There was a shadow on his face, the thing apparently worried him. Well, with good reason. Apparently.

“Huh.” The next thing looked like a file folder full of medical reports. She lifted it out and was just about to set it on the desk when Nick's hand on her arm stopped her.

“That says that your memory loss was gradual at first. Short term memory, things like that.

It's an interesting read.”

She put it on the other side of the box as something to keep for later and looked up at him, her eyebrows raising in question. “You read it?”

He was completely unrepentant. “I did. I wanted to have as much information about you as I could. You could have been dangerous, Darcy, I needed to be prepared.”

She slumped back into the chair, looking up at the box with frown. “I'm not dangerous, Nick. I'm just...” Tired. She was tired. “Please tell me there's a coffee pot somewhere around here.”

He was overseeing the building of some secret SHIELD base. That's where he'd brought her, told her she had a place to stay there as long as she wanted to. Well, it had been more along of the lines of, “I think you should come back to SHIELD,” but whatever.

“Yeah.” He eased himself off the desk. “I'll get you a cup. Need to see about some supplies for you anyway.” That was said in a very pointed way, and she looked up at him, grinning a bit sheepishly.

He left the room and Darcy pushed the chair back, leaving some room between her and the desk. The box was _heavy_ , she discovered as she pulled it off the desk and it sort of made a guided fall down to the floor. “Holy fuck,” she muttered to herself. “Are there rocks in here too?”

There were a lot of heavily redacted reports in the box, apparently she'd given them a lot of information about the war and what the Axis were doing. “Fuck me,” Darcy muttered to herself, adding a sheet of paper to the growing stack on the right of the box. No wonder Peggy wanted Nick to keep her safe.

The bottom was mostly pictures. A good chunk of them were of her with Howard, and the look on his face... He was smiling, but there was something about his eyes that wasn't quite matching up. Pain. That's what it was. There were some with Peggy, and some with Steve, but most of them... Most of them were with Bucky. It was like looking at pictures of someone else who had her face, she had absolutely no recollection of them.

Bucky was a toucher, apparently. He was in constant physical contact with her. Either his arm was around her shoulders, or he was holding her hand, or his hand was on her arm. It seemed... It seemed almost like he was trying to hold onto her. Of course, that was probably just a reflection of what Steve had said to her.

But the expression on her face... She was always smiling. Always. Every single picture, she was smiling at Bucky. They had very obviously been ridiculously happy.

The door opened, and Darcy looked up to see Nick coming back in, a cup of coffee in each hand. He walked back over to the desk and handed one to her, looking down at the papers on his office floor. “Did you get through all of it?”

She took the cup and pulled it to her mouth for a long swallow. “Yeah. It's... It's so surreal, you know? Like, usually when you look at a picture you'll go, 'Oh, hey, I remember that.' Or maybe even, 'I'd totally forgotten about that!' but there's something there, you know? But these?” She gestured down to the photos. “Nothing. Might as well be looking someone else's vacation slideshow or some shit. Apparently, though...” She took another drink of her coffee, savoring the heat as it spread down into her stomach. “Apparently I was instrumental in the war effort. It's probably a good thing all of this shit was redacted, I can't even imagine trying to grow up with _that_.”

He smiled, nodding. “You're a national damn hero, Darcy.” His tone was completely dry.

“Right?” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Yeah. Go me.”

He looked down at her for a moment, settling himself against the edge of the desk again. “Did you read your file yet?” He motioned to it with a gesture of his head.

“No.” Her eyes cut to the old brown folder still sitting on the desk. “But... From the way you keep on about it, I'm really wondering if I really want to.”

“In addition to your medical history, Peggy kept a journal of your...” He paused, shifting a little in his seat. “She called them your symptoms. I'm sure there's stuff that's not tracked, but she wrote down the questions you asked her. Everything's dated.”

The folder seemed vaguely threatening now, the slightly tattered edges seemed to mock her. “Do I have to?”

“No. I can't force you to read it.” He gave her an even look, his eye moving over her face. “This isn't going away, Darcy. You know what we're working towards here, you're going to see him again. And don't think I don't know about his two-man mission to find James Barnes.”

Darcy let out a long sigh, reaching forward to set the coffee cup on the desk. She grabbed the file and pulled it down into her lap. The top part was all medical information. Some of it was redacted, of course, and the bits that weren't were so hard to read it was like trying to translate a foreign language she only had the basics of. “Apparently doctors having bad handwriting goes back a fair ways.”

He smirked. “You were healthy. Other than the memory loss, you were completely healthy. There's not even any record of you having a cold. We believe that your immune system has been boosted.” That made sense, now that she was thinking about it, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been sick.

At the back was the notebook Nick had mentioned. Gingerly pulling it open, Darcy recognized Peggy's writing. Seeing it was comforting, somehow.

As she leafed through it, Nick got up and moved over to another chair that was on the other side of the room. He was giving her privacy, apparently, but keeping close by. That was... Good? Maybe?

It was fairly straightforward. Peggy wrote down questions she had, or responses she gave when she said she didn't remember things. To start with, it was all fairly benign. _Didn't remember talking to Colonel Phillips this morning_. _Didn't remember lunch with Morita_. Things like that. But it got... Harder to read.

 _Couldn't remember how she came to be in the present time_.

 _Asked why she and Steve weren't speaking to each other_. The period at the end of the sentence was heavier, like Peggy had stopped a moment with her pen on the paper. The date was before Steve's plane had gone down. _Asked what happened to Barnes_ , shortly after Steve's plane went down, and then two days later, _Asked who Bucky was_.

 _Asked when her birthday was_. She knew now, it was on her drivers license, but she clearly remembered it as something she had to learn.

 _Couldn't remember her favorite color when Howard asked_.

 _Couldn't remember her childhood pet_.

 _Asked if she'd been to university_.

The last entry, _Asked why she was wearing a wedding ring_. She looked across at where Nick was sitting and looking at a tablet, his cup of coffee still in his hand. “I was... married?” He looked up at her, giving her an even look, but didn't say anything. “This is a mess, this is a fucking mess. This is...” Really depressing is what it was. “Did anything come back? You said something about restoration. Or am I really just this...” _fucked up_.

That wasn't sympathy on his face, Nick didn't really do sympathy. But he _felt_ for her. “As far as we could determine, they couldn't bring anything back, just stop the loss of further memories.”

“Nope, I was right. I definitely didn't want to read this again.” Darcy closed the notebook, closed the file on top of it, and dropped the whole thing into the old box of memories. “Next time listen to me when I say things like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Answers? Maybe?


	5. Chapter 5

“You have to talk to him.” Steve was sitting on the other side of her desk, elbow on the arm of the padded chair with his jaw on his fist, giving her an even look. “He knows you're here, Darce.”

They were... While it wasn't the same as it had been before, they'd worked it out. She'd apologized for blaming him for things that weren't his fault, he'd apologized for saying what he'd said about Howard, and then they got drunk together. Really, really drunk. Thor provided some of his magical Asgardian shit for the cause. There were certain things they didn't talk about now, but they _were_ talking.

Wait. Bucky knew? He already knew? How could he possibly already know unless some well-meaning person had told him? Because although that was one of the things they didn't talk about, she knew Steve still shipped them pretty hard. She raised her eyebrows and gave him a pointed look, and he shook his head, his mouth moving into a grin. “Didn't have to tell him. He was looking through the roster for Hydra agents and your name is pretty unique.”

So he remembered her. He'd been there for a few days, had gotten a complete examination by the medical team and everything. As the main person in charge of personnel, she'd had enough access to the file that said that while Bucky remembered a lot of things, parts of his memory were still touch and go. And, of course, after everything that he'd been put through (actual electroshock therapy to take the memories away, and how fucking fucked up was _that_ ) it wasn't really a surprise. Sure made a lot more sense than _an alien stone ate me_.

“I can just...” Not. She could just not. She wasn't entirely sure how that would work, but there had to be a way, right? It was a big base, there were weeks when she didn't even see Maria or Helen at all.

Steve just arched an eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest, clearly unimpressed with her answer. “He's a highly-trained assassin. No matter what he's remembered of who he used to be, he's retained all of that training. You could try to avoid him, not that that's something I particularly think is a good idea, but he's going to find you, Darce.”

She wanted to ask _why_ the fuck he was so determined to talk to her, but she was pretty sure she knew. Steve had taken back the engagement ring, what he'd done with it she wasn't entirely sure. But that was still something that was unresolved... “Okay...” Darcy let out a long sigh. “So you've been talking him up to me, have you... told him anything about me?” Not that it was Steve's job, but if he was coming to her like this, had he done it the other way?

“I told him. Told him your memory is worse than his.” He attempted a smile, but a pained look crossed his angular face, and she couldn't help but sigh again.

“Thanks, Steve. You didn't have to, and I really...” That would definitely make it easier. He wouldn't come charging up to her, expecting her to fall right back into wherever they'd been before he fell off the train. “Really appreciate it.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

Before the silence turned into something awkward, she pulled on something he had said that had stuck out in her mind. “Did he?” Steve arched an eyebrow at the non sequitur. “I mean, find any Hydra agents.”

He shook his head. “Not that he mentioned. I told him that you would be the person to bring any personnel concerns to, of course.”

Because of course he did. He hadn't told Bucky she was there, but he sure had given him a pretty handy excuse for coming to see her. If he even needed one.

There was a hesitant knock at her office door, and Darcy's eyes narrowed as she glanced at it, then back at the man across from her. “You meant right now, didn't you. He's going to find me right now.”

Steve sort of shrugged and unfolded himself from his chair, his expression indicating that he actually didn't know if this was Bucky or not as he moved back to open the door. It might _not_ have been, people stopped by her office all the time.

It was, though, of course it was. He was standing there in the doorway, different than what she'd seen in the photographs. His hair was different, longer, hanging around his face. Stubble ran along his jaw, prompting the visceral memory of a smooth chin rubbing against the inside of her thigh, surfacing for only a moment before drowning again in the morass of her mind. He stood there for a long moment just staring at her, his expression completely blank.

Steve took his hand off the doorknob as he glanced between them. “I'll catch up with you guys later.” Then he was leaving, moving through the open door and out into the hallway, clapping Bucky on the shoulder as he went. He quickly disappeared from view.

Darcy pushed her wheeled office chair back and stood up, gesturing to the padded chair that Steve had just vacated. “Do you want to have a seat?” Amazingly, her voice was steady despite the nerves that had her gripping the edge of the desk tightly enough that her knuckles were pressing up white against her skin. She had never felt more alone in someone else's presence than she did right in that moment as those haunted blue eyes bored into hers.

He came in and shut the door behind him, but he didn't sit down. Instead he stood, staring at her in silence. Seconds ticked by, tension weighting down the room with each passing moment, and still he just stared at her. Eventually, he said, “Stevie said you don't remember me.” His voice was soft, deep, and heavy with pain.

She shook her head. “I'm sorry.”

His facial expression didn't change, but his eyes... It hurt her to look across the room at his impossibly blue eyes, he looked... lost. “What happened to you?”

“I don't...” Another long sigh, and she sank down into her chair again, leaning back against it. “I don't know. The running theory is that the stone altered my brainwaves enough that I just started dropping memories.” Tony was trying to puzzle the whole thing out, in collaboration with Jane when she had any free time. In addition to finding more mostly-naked pictures of her, Nat had turned up the old marriage certificate from her apparent marriage to Howard Stark. Tony had grown up hearing stories about the first wife that Howard had lost during the war, and he was _fascinated_ by the whole situation. Apparently Howard had been a pretty shitty father before he'd died suddenly and unexpectedly, and this was giving Tony closure? Something along those lines, anyway.

His eyes moved over her. “You okay?” He wasn't asking because that's just what people do, he was asking because he actually wanted to know how she was doing.

She shrugged. “Physically, better than fine, but mentally... Howard was able to return me here somehow, and they were able to stop me from losing any more, but couldn't restore what I'd lost.” She looked back for a long moment. “Are you okay?” He looked different than he did in the pictures. He looked tired, somehow, like just a bone-numbing exhaustion. There was the metal arm, of course, the only sign of that a dark glove pulled over his left hand, the rest buried under his dark hoodie.

“Dunno. Stevie's been real good to me, but my best girl doesn't even remember me.”

Darcy didn't really know what to say to that. She looked away, down at the paper strewn across her desk, and started pulling it into random piles for lack of anything else to do.

He continued to look at her for a while, the intensity of his eyes making her feel a little bit like a bug under a microscope. “Are you seein' anyone? Stevie wouldn't answer that.”

“I'm not. I was married, apparently, for a little while, but he's long dead now.”

He flinched like she'd hit him. “I asked you not to forget me.” It wasn't an accusation, somehow, not the way Steve had sounded when she'd first talked to him about Bucky.

“Well, I forgot my husband, too, so I wouldn't take it too personally.” Darcy regretted the words the second they'd left her mouth. She was trying to make him feel better, but Bucky looked like... His expression was breaking her heart. “God, I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm...” Wow. Now she felt about two inches tall. She stared hard at the small font on the paper in front of her, the black letters twisting and blurring together. “There's pictures of us. Together, I mean, you and I.” Anything to change the subject.

“I know.” She looked up to see the pain was carefully tucked away, leaving blankness in its place. “I saw in the museum.”

“I have different ones, other ones. We looked happy, I gotta say that.” Happier than she and Howard had looked, but mentioning Howard again seemed like just the worst idea. “I have them, I can show you sometime if you want.”

That appeared to need some thought. “Maybe. I'm not that guy. Stevie...” He let out a long sigh. “Stevie expects me to be the Bucky he knew still, even though he's changed, and I'm not.”

“Okay.” She watched him for a long moment. “But if you both have changed, then you can't really expect me to be the same person- even if I still remembered everything.”

“No. I guess not.” There was another heavy silence, and this one seemed to be permanent. What else was there really to say? He looked down at her, and she saw his hand come out, reaching towards her. He looked down at it almost in surprise before pulling it against his side again, hand balling into a fist.

Darcy tapped the knuckle of her thumb gently against her desk. The conversation appeared to be over, she had work to do. But she didn't really feel right trying to hustle him out of her office, especially not after she'd compared him to Howard. _Ugh_. Her eyes fell again to her desk, his gaze was entirely too intense. “Do you need anything? Is there anything I can get you that would help you feel more comfortable living here?”

He opened his mouth to say something, but it closed with an audible snap, dark hair swinging around his face as he shook his head. He stood there for another moment rubbing his palms up and down along his thighs as he looked down at her. “Will I see you around?” was what he eventually came out with. It wasn't a casual question, there was a weight behind it, a significance. Would he _see_ her, could he _see_ her, the same way he'd asked if she was seeing someone just now. There was a hope, a deep sorrow, a resigned air like he'd already determined that she would say no and he was just waiting to hear it fall from her lips.

She didn't say no, it didn't even occur to her. “Of course, James.” The smile and the answer slipped out before she really had time to think about them, the ghost of a memory slipping across the back of her mind only to vanish before she could get a handle on it.

Bucky stared at her for a long moment in silence, fresh, wordless pain moving through his expression. Eventually he turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Somehow that had been worse than the expected declining.

She stared at the closed wooden door for a long moment after he was gone before she folded her arms on her desk, pillowing her head in her arms, silent tears slipping from her eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's done. Thanks for reading, super thanks for all the comment love! :D


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